Nowadays, the problem of resource shortage has become more and more severe and at the mean time the energy prices increase continuously. Hence, energy management has become a great concern of the public. It is highly desirable to distribute and utilize the energy efficiently through intelligent monitoring, management, and control.
There are two types of energy management, which are energy management at the power-supply side and energy management at the power-consuming side. Energy management at the power-supply side achieves energy management by connecting the conventional power-supply networks and renewable energy sources to an intelligent power management network. In this way, the state of supply and demand can be monitored in real time and adjustments can be made duly to achieve the best effect. The objective of energy management at the power-supply side is to ensure the power-supply quality and to reduce costs for power grid establishing and managing. As to the objective of energy management at the power-consuming side, which places the emphasis on analyzing power consumption information in real time, predicting the future power consumption demand, and managing the power consumption in conjunction with the electricity pricing policy to avoid unnecessary waste. Through the energy management at the power-consuming side, the electricity charge can be reduced and energy saving can be achieved.
Regarding energy management at the power-consuming side, conventional technologies mainly inform users at the power-consuming side of their own electricity consumption behaviors by ranking their electricity consumptions or by holding power saving competitions. In these ways, users can make improvements on their electricity consumption behaviors to save energy. Specifically, in the case of ranking electricity consumptions of users, the power-supply side will notify a user whether his/her electricity consuming amount is too much according to his/her ranking position in terms of the electricity consumption. Thus, the user is reminded of improving his/her electricity consumption behavior to reduce the electricity consuming amount. Regarding holding power saving competition, a favorable electricity charge or other rewards will be provided to a user if his/her electricity consuming amount in this year is less than his/her electricity consuming amount in last year. Hence, electricity consumption behavior can be improved.
Although electricity consumptions of users can be reduced by ranking electricity consumptions of the users, holding power saving competitions, or other ways, the effect is not so evident. The main reason is that the conventional technologies fail in telling the users the explicit way to achieve power saving. Furthermore, users have no idea whether the high electricity consuming amount results from low appliance efficiency or from improper operations. Saving power blindly may lead to loss of due comfort and convenience, which will decrease the willingness of the users for saving energy.
Accordingly, there is still an urgent need in providing a mechanism for recommending an electricity consumption behavior which can inform a user of specific measures to save power.